Thursday, August 05, 2004

See the Capital column in today's Wall Street Journal, which has a great policy analysis of the following priceless argument from Bush:

Campaigning last weekend, President Bush offered this attack on opponent John Kerry: "He said he's only going to raise the tax on the so-called rich," the president said in Canton, Ohio. "But you know how the rich is: They've got accountants. That means you pay. That means your small business pays. It means the farmers and ranchers pay."

I don't like to post too much from any article for copyright reasons, but here's a sample analysis he does of one quote:----------------"'You know how the rich is: They've got accountants. That means you pay.'... Is the president courting votes from cynics who say the rich avoid taxes and the rest of us pay? Claire Buchan, a White House spokeswoman, explains: "The president is noting that the so-called wealthy have the resources to hire accountants to find ways to reduce their tax bills.... Quips Jason Furman, a Kerry economist: 'If the most fortunate weren't paying taxes in the first place, why did they need the Bush tax cut?'"